


Going to Where the Wind Blows

by Ceia



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Mission Related, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 05:29:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15478668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceia/pseuds/Ceia
Summary: A mission in Eichenwalde doesn't go according to plan, and Angela is somewhat distressed when Jamie volunteers to step in.





	Going to Where the Wind Blows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarShineRobotics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarShineRobotics/gifts).



> Another prompt from [Tumblr](https://superceia.tumblr.com/post/176345555065/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-i-will-write-a), written for [Star!](http://starshine-robotics.tumblr.com/)

An ambush of OR-units has them running full-pelt out of the castle and into the forest. Everyone is breathless when they finally reach cover, a shrouded copse that provides some shelter from the torrential rain and affords Jack a chance to touch base with the others. Gabriel is reloading his guns, Reinhardt is looking over the chips on his shield, and Angela is simply grateful for an opportunity to check in with Jamie. They’ve probably only got a few minutes of recuperation before they’ll need to move again, but she’s been worried about him from the moment they left the van, hours ago now and long before this mission went so terribly awry.

“Are you alright?” Angela asks, resting her hand on Jamie’s shoulder. He’s bent over trying to get his breath back, and she keeps it there when he straightens up.

“Who, me?” Jamie asks, as brightly as he can even though he pants it out. “Never better, Miss Ziegler!”

“And your leg?”

“Oh she’s apples,” he says, sticking out his cybernetic leg. “Faultless, just like the woman who made her!”

Jamie is wearing his uniform so Angela can’t see his leg—can’t see the bright orange chassis he insisted on during its design phase—but he hasn’t stumbled, doesn’t appear to have had any trouble with it, so Angela takes him at his word. Jamie has a hard time hiding when he’s in any sort of discomfort, even though he likes to think he doesn’t.

Her eyes flick over the length of his body, just to double check that he’s okay. Around base and during his physiotherapy Jamie only wears loose t-shirts when he isn’t topless. Today is his first proper field assignment, and he’s in full Overwatch gear for it. Beneath Jamie’s clip harness and armour is a nylon bodysuit. Black and form-fitting, Angela isn’t ashamed to admit that it looks very good on him, highlighting the slender hips and broad shoulders she’s become so familiar with throughout his rehabilitation. But she’s noticed that he’s kept tugging on the collar of it throughout the mission, like the bodysuit is too tight around his neck.

“And you’re sure the suit isn’t uncomfortable?” Angela asks, softly, hand sliding down Jamie’s shoulder to squeeze his arm. She can’t help being tactile with him, a physical reassurance that she’s here to help.

“Naaaah,” he laughs, waving a hand at her. “’Course it isn’t, just gettin’ used to it! ‘Sides, makes me feel _official_.”

Jamie sets his hands on his hips and puffs his chest up.

“Pretty bloody handsome too, if I do say so myself!” he says proudly, waggling his eyebrows at her.

“I couldn’t possibly comment,” Angela chuckles, when he nudges her for an answer. “I’m just sorry your true introduction to Overwatch has been so—well.” She gestures over to the others. “Like this.”

“Pffft, love bein’ thrown in at the deep end, me!” Jamie scoffs. “S’loads more fun!”

Angela appreciates his persistent optimism, but it’s been a dreadful assignment for all of them. What was supposed to be a routine mission in Eichenwalde became complicated by a blindsiding interception by Talon within the castle, followed by a further complication when the perimeter’s OR-units appeared outside the gates. There’s no point in staying any longer when their attempt at a clandestine operation has been foiled. Now it’s just a case of arranging a safe way out of the forest, something much easier said than done seeing as Jack lost contact with Winston about an hour ago.

“Plus havin’ good company helps,” Jamie says, sing-song as he throws his right arm around Angela’s shoulders. It’s still bulkier than a regular arm, but his new cybernetic is much smoother and sleeker than what he had before.

“You’re welcome,” Angela quips, flattening her hand on his chest when he squeezes her against him, a half-attempt to push him away while she tries not to smile. She should be used to his flirting, this easy physicality they share from the amount of time they’ve spent together in physio, but Angela isn’t very good at hiding the effect it—the effect Jamie—has on her. Now isn’t the time to indulge in this sort of thing, anyway. They need to focus on getting out of here.

They jog over to the rest of the team. Jack seems to have finally contacted Hana, finger pressed over his earpiece like he’s struggling to hear her.

“Look, just get outta there and come to the rendezvous point!” he snaps, before cursing and whipping away from the group, cape lashing at his boots from how sharply he turns. Angela’s stomach drops heavily and immediately, not one part of her liking the way Jack has suddenly lost his patience.

“The fuck’s going on?” Jamie asks. Nobody is more protective of Hana than Jack, but Jamie is friends with her too and knows Jack well enough to understand his behaviour means bad news. Gabriel and Reinhardt have gone still as well, waiting. Everyone watches in the silent seconds that follow when Jack rubs a hand over his jaw.

Rain continues to fall around them.

“There’s—a bomb,” Jack says, without looking at any of them. “Basement of the castle.”

“Oh my god,” Angela says, the ground opening out from under her.

“You seriously mean to tell me we’ve been led into a trap?” Gabriel says, half laughing it.

“Jack, you told them to get out, so they are getting out, correct?” Reinhardt asks, slowly, his concern for the others measured but deep.

“They are, but it needs dealing with." Jack looks at Reinhardt, and then to Gabriel. When his eyes fall on Jamie a cold washes over Angela that chills her from flesh to bone.

No. She knows what’s coming. Can feel it next to her, in the crackle of damp leaves under his foot as he takes a step forward. The charged energy of wanting to prove himself, the energy she’s been dreading from the moment Jack said he would be able to join them today.

“As if things could not get any _worse_ ,” Reinhardt mutters. “What sort of bomb are we talking of, here? Surely we can find cover!”

“Can we deactivate it remotely?” Angela asks, wanting some way, any way out of this. Jack purses his lips.

“Hana said it was an ‘old school’ device. Lena wasn’t able to disarm it with our equipment, and its detonation time is within the next forty minutes. Hence the need for it to be dealt with.”

“Fucking _hell_ ,” Gabriel says, snarling. “What are Talon doing?! How are we supposed to deal with—”

“I will,” Jamie barks. “I’ll do it. I’ll go.”

Angela clutches her chest where hearing this seems to have crushed it. Gabriel and Jack share a look like they’re unconvinced. Jamie laughs.

"Well, nobody else is gonna do it, are they?” he says, folding his arms. “And I mean, no offense, but I get the feeling none’a you lot are gonna be anywhere _near_ as good at taking care of bombs as me. Sorta my speciality, ain’t it?”

“Jamie,” Angela says, calmly, glaring at the back of his head. Jamie smiles around at her, an infuriatingly placating look as though he was expecting her to take issue with his recklessness.

“S’fine!” he chirps. “Doesn’t bother me. I’ve got this, no probs.”

“There is absolutely no way,” Angela says, starting but unable to finish due to the swelling in her throat. How dare he offer himself like this without even—without even _thinking_ about—

“Agent,” Jack says, “if you’re willing to go in there alone, then—”

"Under no circumstance is he to go in there on his own!” Angela snaps, but before she can say that she will accompany him, Gabriel curtly shakes his head at her.

“Don’t even _think_ about it,” he says, interrupting her protest. “We need you to stay with us.”

“But—”

“Gabe is right,” Jack says. “I’m sorry, but our hands are—they’ve got us cornered, here.”

Angela turns to Reinhardt, but he just sighs, scratching his head.

“I’m sorry, Angela, but it is for the best if you stay with us,” he says, sounding like this is a difficult decision for him as well. “If we do not move on, there is a chance none of us will survive.”

Unbelievable, she thinks. Not a single one of them are against this.

“There’s no way we can risk losing both of you,” Gabriel says, so matter-of-factly it makes her stomach curdle. For him to just come out with something like that—implying he isn’t absolutely certain of Jamie’s safe and immediate return to the group following the bomb’s successful deactivation—has Angela’s heart icing over. How can they do this? How can they—how _dare_ they all imply that her life is somehow worth more than his!

“Hey,” Jamie says, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Y’know I appreciate y’concern, Angie. Done this a hundred times or more before now though. Make the bloody things m’self don’t forget!”

“But I should—it’s not right for you to go in alone!”

“’Course it is! Don’t need you coming with me,” Jamie says, firmly. “Won’t be gone long!”

I don’t want you to go, Angela thinks, having to suck her lower lip to stop herself from vocalising it. I don’t want you to go at all.

“Okay?” Jamie says hopefully, lifting his eyebrows at her. Behind her, Jack clears his throat. Angela knows that every second she hesitates is a second of wasted time.

“I will hold you to that,” she says, shakily, left with no option but to concede.

And so Angela stands there, utterly powerless as Jack brings up a hologram to display the castle’s map. Jamie nods along with every damned thing he says, frowning and pointing and asking whatever he needs to ask, all while avoiding any acknowledgement of the fact that he’s about to risk his life.

She wants to cry, wants to scream and shout from how angry she is with Jack for letting this happen, with all of them for jumping on Jamie’s willingness to volunteer himself. How angry she is with herself for somehow becoming so attached to Jamie that the possibility of anything happening to him could hurt this much. Why is she thinking so irrationally when they’re in the middle of a professional assignment? This is what he’s been brought in for, isn’t it? Emergency procedures that require all of his skills as an explosives specialist?

Then why, why is Angela is trembling like this?

“Do we have your consent and understanding of the risk here?” Jack asks, moments later even though it feels as though hours have passed. Jamie is fiddling with his watch and checking over his gear, totally casual.

“Yep! Ready to go,” Jamie says, beaming when he grins at Jack. His amber eyes are sharp and focused, determined. It’s the same look he gives her when he’s about to overextend in physio and hurt himself. Angela hates it, hates seeing Jamie like this, cocky and overconfident. She might’ve been able to convince him to stay if he was at least somewhat visibly nervous, the castle and everything left in it be damned. But she can’t.

Jamie has twenty minutes to find the concealed underpass to the castle’s basement and five minutes to locate the bomb. He thinks he’ll be capable of disarming it in two. Jack pats his back, followed by Gabriel and Reinhardt, all of them wishing him a firm good luck. The distant sound of creaking wood interrupts the quiet pattering of rain, echoes of omnic movement filtering through the forest where the OR-units might be catching up to them.

Standing in front of him, Angela can’t bring herself to pat Jamie’s back, nor can she tell him good luck, because she doesn’t want this to be any sort of goodbye. Her chest feels heavy, laden with all the things she wants to say to him, but when she tries nothing comes out. He’s about to risk his life for everyone, and she can’t even speak to him.

“Just stick with the guys,” Jamie says, holding her by the shoulders. He can probably see how upset she is because his eyes are wide with panic even though he’s smiling. “I’ll be having words if they don’t look after ya!”

“Jamie,” Angela says, uselessly, because it’s all she can say.

Three months ago they didn’t even know each other. Two months ago Junkrat grudgingly accepted her offer of upgrading his arm and leg. Angela devoted herself to assisting his physiotherapy in the weeks that followed, eager to ensure his recovery and confidence in his new cybernetics. Now they’re so close and comfortable with one another that yesterday, when he came into her bunk for the third night in a row after dinner, Jamie fell asleep with his head in her lap while she was reading.

He was impossible to work with in the beginning, didn’t respond well at all to her initial pity over his troublesome past. But Angela has become far closer with Jamie than she ever intended when she took on the challenge of helping him. They’ve worked so hard to give him a better body, a better life as a result of that. Facing him now, she can’t bear the thought of this being the last time she ever sees him.

But this is part of working for Overwatch. Part of their newer, better lives as agents. She doesn’t have a choice.

“I’d best head off now, Ange. Soon as I’m done I’ll come meetcha with Hana and the rest of the guys,” Jamie says, eyes soft on hers where they’d been so sharp. He rubs her shoulders. “Then you can go _riiiight_ back to stressin’ y’self about my arm and leg, as per!”

“Angela!” Reinhardt says, calling out to her. “Come on!”

“Shit.” Jamie frowns as he looks over her head. Angela can hear them too, the thunder of approaching OR-units, but the only sound she can make is a whimper when Jamie threatens to let go of her. He hesitates, like he’s struggling to leave her, too. Jamie bites his lip.

“Look, I fucking _swear_ to you, Angie, I’m coming right back once I’ve done this. Right back!”

“Right—right back,” Angela says, nodding, barely managing to get the words out. She seems to have found her voice again. Why is it so difficult to let him go? “And—you’re sure you don’t want me to come?”

“Nope! Absolutely not. You’re to stay here with the guys. Junkrat’s orders!”

Angela goes to say something, but she’s cut off by Jamie brushing his thumb under her chin. He grins at her.

“I’ll take care of you _personally_ when I’m back,” he says, quietly, with a note of promise that knots Angela’s belly. “So you best wait for me. Alright?”

It would seem that this is what she’s been waiting for. Compelled by an urgency greater than any need to hide how she’s feeling, Angela surges forward, grabbing Jamie’s harness to pull him into her. When she rolls up onto her toes to kiss him, he’s so tall that she doesn’t quite catch his mouth. Just the corner of it, enough to feel the partial softness of his lips and the warmth of his gasped breath. His skin is damp and cool on hers from the rain, a strange feeling when she’s so used to the rest of his body being so warm in the gym.

Jamie’s eyes have never looked wider when she pulls away from him. Angela scowls, letting go of him and stepping back.

“Come back soon then, please,” she says, a strict order despite the ball in her throat and the crack in her voice. Her face feels very hot. Jamie stares at her, dumbfounded.

Then he smirks at her, and his eyes narrow.

“Oh, just you try and stop me,” he says, darkly. “’Cause I’m gonna pay you back _triple_ for that, little lady. Just you bloody wait!”

“Can we PLEASE do this later?” Gabriel shouts, breaking them out of the moment. “We’ve got company here!”

Jamie is still grinning when he turns and runs. Angela allows herself a second to watch him disappear back through the forest, and her face is burning, heart hammering when she rushes over to the others. She’s only a little embarrassed by the quirked eyebrows and exasperated smiles facing her, but there’s no time for embarrassment anyway because the OR-units are in view now, galloping through the forest like boars. The team, minus Jamie, reach for their weapons.

If she can’t go with him, she’s comforted by the thought that she’s given him a part of herself, at least. Angela just hopes, desperately, more than anything else, that Jamie will come back safely. But she also hopes, privately, that he’ll make good on his word, too.

 

*


End file.
